Double Feature

No Small Affair

Dandy, the All-American Girl

No Small Affair

Before there was “Duckie”, Jon Cryer played Charles Cummings, a young photographer smitten with Demi Moore’s twentysomething singer Laura Victor, in No Small Affair. After accidentally snapping a pic of Laura having a fight with her boyfriend, Charles searches her out, and they soon become friends. Charles, though, wants to be more and will do anything in his power to help her singing career break through, including executing a misbegotten grand romantic gesture. Cryer makes his film debut, replacing the previously cast Matthew Broderick, and has great onscreen chemistry with costar Demi Moore. It would be a few years before he got a shot at another leading role, but in this film Cryer has great presence out of the gate as the smart, sensitive and somewhat misguided teen.

“Mr. Schatzberg, who shows off a previously undemonstrated knack for comedy, also favors attention-getting bold strokes … these touches contribute to the film’s aura of unpredictability, which is one of its chief assets. Another is Vilmos Zsigmond, whose vibrant cinematography gives the film a bright, colorful gloss.” – Janet Maslin, The New York Times

Howard S. Berger writes about director Jerry Schatzberg on the New Beverly blog.

Dandy, the All-American Girl

Lock the garage, Dandy’s in town, and there’s never been a girl so good at being so bad. In Jerry Schatzberg’s crime comedy, Stockard Channing plays a young car thief whose grand scheme of making enough quick cash to buy her dream Ferrari has the cops and her court-appointed attorney (Sam Waterston) tied in knots. Channing is excellent as the tough talking career criminal, showing an electric chemistry with Waterston as the lawyer sucked into her world while trying to reform her. aka Sweet Revenge (1976)

Howard S. Berger writes about director Jerry Schatzberg on the New Beverly blog.

Marc Edward Heuck discusses Dandy, the All-American Girl on the New Beverly blog.